Alcaligenes faecalis is one of the most important and clinically significant environmental pathogens, increasing in importance due to its isolation from soil and nosocomial environments. The Gram-negative soil bacterium is associated with skin endocarditis, bacteremia, dysentery, meningitis, endophthalmitis, urinary tract infections, and pneumonia in patients. With emerging antibiotic resistance in A. faecalis, it has become crucial to understand the origin of such resistance genes within this clinically significant environmental and gut bacterium. In this research, we studied the impact of antibiotic overuse in poultry and its effect on developing resistance in A. faecalis. We sampled soil and faecal materials from five poultry farms, performed whole genome sequencing & analysis and identified four strains of A. faecalis. Furthermore, we characterized the genes in the genomic islands of A. faecalis isolates. We found four multidrug-resistant A. faecalis strains that showed resistance against vancomycin (MIC >1000 μg/ml), ceftazidime (50 μg/ml), colistin (50 μg/ml) and ciprofloxacin (50 μg/ml). From whole genome comparative analysis, we found more than 180 resistance genes compared to the reference sequence. Parts of our assembled contigs were found to be similar to different bacteria which included pbp1A and pbp2 imparting resistance to amoxicillin originally a part of Helicobacter and Bordetella pertussis. We also found the Mycobacterial insertion element IS6110 in the genomic islands of all four genomes. This prominent insertion element can be transferred and induce resistance to other bacterial genomes. The results thus are crucial in understanding the transfer of resistance genes in the environment and can help in developing regimes for antibiotic use in the food and poultry industry.
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First Case of Respiratory Infection in Rabbits Caused by Alcaligenes faecalis in Romania Vlad Iorgoni, Ionica Iancu, Ionela Popa, Alexandru Gligor, Gabriel Orghici, Bogdan Sicoe, Corina Badea, Cristian Dreghiciu, Călin Pop, Timea Bochiș, Janos Degi, Luminita Costinar, Corina Pascu, Viorel Herman Veterinary Sciences.2025; 12(1): 33. CrossRef
Recent rapid air temperature increases across the northernlatitude
tundra have prolonged permafrost thawing and snow
melting periods, resulting in increased soil temperature (Ts)
and volumetric soil water content (SWC). Under prolonged
soil warming at 8°C, Alaskan tundra soils were incubated in
a microcosm system and examined for the SWC differential
influence on the microbial decomposition activity of large
molecular weight (MW) humic substances (HS). When one
microcosm soil (AKC1-1) was incubated at a constant SWC
of 41% for 90 days (T = 90) and then SWC was gradually
decreased from 41% to 29% for another T = 90, the initial
HS was partly depolymerized. In contrast, in AKC1-2 incubated
at a gradually decreasing SWC from the initial 32% to
10% for T = 90 and then increasing to 27% for another T =
90, HS depolymerization was undetected. Overall, the microbial
communities in AKC1-1 could maintain metabolic
activity at sufficient and constant SWC during the initial T =
90 incubation. In contrast, AKC1-2 microbes may have been
damaged by drought stress during the drying SWC regimen,
possibly resulting in the loss of HS decomposition activity,
which did not recover even after re-wetting to an optimal
SWC range (20–40%). After T = 90, the CO2 production in
both treatments was attributed to the increased decomposition
of small-MW organic compounds (including aerobic
HS-degradative products) within an optimal SWC range. We
expect this study to provide new insights into the early effects
of warming- and topography-induced SWC variations on
the microbial contribution to CO2 emissions via HS decomposition
in northern-latitude tundra soil.
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Analysis of CO2 Emission by Urban Soils under the Conditions of the Kola North M. V. Korneykova, V. I. Vasenev, N. V. Saltan, M. V. Slukovskaya, A. S. Soshina, M. S. Zavodskikh, Y. L. Sotnikova, A. V. Dolgikh Почвоведение.2023; (11): 1385. CrossRef